Stay Safe
Posts Tagged ‘background’
So why have I taken the time out of my busy life as a single mother of three children to make this blog?
During the summer of last year (2009) I found myself out of work as my firm was downsizing due to the economy. I straight away went on the hunt for a new job, trying all of the normal sources, recruitment firms, newspapers, online classifieds. The search was turning up lots of ‘work at home’ type jobs, but very few real positions. Now obviously this lady is not a fool, and she knows that ‘make 1000s a week from home’ type emails are going to be scams.
Then came a really interesting email from a proper company e-mail address, from a company with a real website, and a real phone number. WOW, I thought, finally I had found a real position in Craigslist. The email asked me to go to the recruitment section of this companies website. I then spent the next half an hour filling out lots and lots interview type questions, I had to upload my resume, and verify my e-mail address. A few days later a followup email arrived from the company letting me know that I had been accepted for an interview. To organise this I needed to go back to the site and create a login, password, and pin for my application. When I went to the site and did this, the site then told me I needed to provide a ‘background check’ which was ‘free’ and also order some ‘training’ materials, again for free, strangely both required my credit card number. This didn’t feel right, but without doing both of these, I couldn’t book a time for my interview!
With the two ’services’ completed, the site informed me that I would be called back within seven days to organize a time to have my interview. A week came and went, I tried to call but the number seemed to be a permanent voicemail. I assumed that the company had found someone and was following the typical rude behaviour of most companies and not letting me know that I had lost out on the job.
When my credit card bill arrived a few weeks later, I had been billed for $1 AND then $250 for ID Verification, and a further $1.99 AND then $450 for Training Services. You can imagine my reaction!!!!!
I contacted my card company who told me that I needed to contact the companies in question before they could take any action. For the next month I tried in vain to contact the company who offered me this position. They didn’t respond to any of my attempts. Finally I managed to get in touch with the so called ’service providers’ and request a refund. I was told that materials had been mailed to me, and these needed to be returned. WHAT MATERIALS?!?!?!??! I received nothing.
The next credit card bill arrived and there was a further two $49.95 charges for ‘membership’. At this point I again called my card company and did a charge back on all of these fees, I also canceled that card and ordered a new one.
It didn’t stop there though. The people behind the site, had during the application asked for a copy of my SS number. I didn’t discover how dangerous this is until another month later when I was called by a bank I wasn’t a customer of and was asked for payment of my outstanding credit card balance. The lady was quite understanding and suggested I get a fresh copy of my credit report to discover any other services that I had unknowingly signed up for. It turned out that I now had three new cards in my name.
I am not allowed to discuss what happened next, but suffice to say, after many sleepless nights, MANY angry and pleading letters and phone calls, and more government types than I could handle, the people behind the scam were caught and received their just deserts.
So now I make a point of trying to catch these people. I have learned their little tricks, and aquired enough internet know how to be able to track them down, and in most cases shut them down.
This is my blog – and I hope you find it useful, PLEASE if you have a scam example mail it to me, I’ll investigate as time permits and out as many scammers as I can.
Natasha
